remained as an aftermath of the invasions. Many knights had become impoverished during the long months and years away from home in the service of Kamakura, and there were no spoils to divide among the victors. The wavering loyalty of the knights had suffered a serious blow; yet the Kamakura system was strong enough to survive another fifty years.
The final blow came from a new and surprising source, a retired emperor who is known by his posthumous name of Daigo II. This ex-emperor was an historical misfit who had the antiquated idea that the imperial line should really rule. Gathering a force of discontented warriors from the capital district and soldiers from local monastery estates, he led a revolt against Kamakura in the year 1331. The revolt in itself would have meant little if the whole Kamakura system had not been ripe for dissolution. The warriors of western Japan for the most part declared for the imperial cause, and Ashikaga Takauji, the general sent from eastern Japan to subdue the uprising, suddenly switched sides in 1333. A second force was raised in the Kanto region, but this time the general in command did not even march on Kyoto. Instead he seized Kamakura itself, destroyed the Hojo family, and thus brought to an end a century and a half of centralized rule.
Daigo II, who naïvely assumed that the way was now open for the resumption of imperial rule as it had existed five or six centuries earlier, was in for a rude awakening. Ashikaga Takauji was a realist who knew where power lay, and he soon deserted Daigo II, driving the unhappy monarch from Kyoto in 1336 and putting a